Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Wednesday February 01, 2012 @08:53AM
from the end-of-the-line dept.

concertina226 writes with sad news for Swedish pirates. Quoting the article: "The Swedish Supreme Court will not hear an appeal from the founders of The Pirate Bay against prison sentences and fines imposed by the Swedish Court of Appeals, the court said on Wednesday. Over a year ago, the Court of Appeals sentenced Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundström to 10 months, eight months, and four months of jail time, respectively. The court also said they must collectively pay a 46 million kronor (£4.3 million) fine."
The Pirate Bay has issued a response: "With this said, we hear news from our old admins that they have received a verdict in Sweden. Our 3 friends and blood brothers have been sentenced to prison. This might sound worse than it is. Since no one of them no longer lives in Sweden, they won't go to jail. They are as free today as they were yesterday."
Update: 02/01 15:15 GMT by U L:Reader think_nix helpfully copied the Pirate Bay response in a comment for those who cannot access the site.

Remember every time copyright industries thought they had finally shut down The Pirate Bay? Yeah, just popped up again. Them not serving time because they aren't in Sweden? Not a perfect analogy but close enough for me!

So now every small copyright infringement will lead to detainment until the decision has been reached as pirates are "highly more likely to flee the country"? Or at least the record labels would like to see it that way...

They could just do something similar to what the movie industry pulled a long time ago (in order to nerf Edison's patents): move someplace where their actions are not illegal. Let's be honest, whichever country ends up with that many pirates (programmers, etc.) is going to bank. And not just a little, as these people tend to be some of the more skilled in the industry (they will make it rain). Fortunately, the vast majority of countries are not joining in (just yet) on this global witch-hunt, so such measures are (for now) unnecessary. However, if and when it should happen, I project that the countries involved in said persecutions will experience a brain drain that will set them back only a century or so.

The world is too connected for that. Any country that tried would instantly become the distribution hub for the rest of the world, which would bring the collective wrath of copyright pundits in all other countries down on you. Reminds me of that East European politician that wanted to lower the age to star in porn to match the age of consent, he got a massive international shitstorm. Now why would all these countries give a shit about what a fart of a country a continent away does? Because if it's legal to

They could just do something similar to what the movie industry pulled a long time ago (in order to nerf Edison's patents): move someplace where their actions are not illegal.

They did. They performed all their actions in Sweden where their actions were not illegal. This is also why there for a long time were no action taken against TPB, despite the site being far from unknown to the prosecutors of that country. Then after a few years the MAFIAA started pressing for US politicians to do something about this. They in turn put pressure on Swedish politicians (behind the scenes, since in Swden it's illegal for the politicians to tell the prosecutors what to do). Suddenly their servers are confiscated and they're put into a courtroom before a judge who conveniently happens to have close ties to the Swedish MAFIAA-equivalent...

They were convicted on "promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws"

Even though almost all charges were found invalid or dropped during the case, the prosecution was allowed to keep introducing new evidence and witnesses not shared with the defense or the court until the judge had enough of it and simply convicted them.

That sounds like a complete Kangaroo Court. Some high-up politicians must have been paid off for this.

They were. The Swedish attorney general was treated to a 14-day all-expenses-paid 'study-tour' to the US, paid for by... the MAFIAA. This was less than a week before the highly illegal raid was performed.

It was illegal because the attorney general signed the search warrant herself, which she could because she was also a judge (not active during her tenure as attorney general but still formally a judge). But this was a violation of the constitution (as it would be in most civilized countries) because you can

Yes, but usually you can appeal a conviction and if the conviction was total BS, the higher court will see that and overturn the conviction. But if a conviction is faulty and the only higher court refuses to hear the case, that's evidence of very deep corruption.

they're put into a courtroom before a judge who conveniently happens to have close ties to the Swedish MAFIAA-equivalent...

For this theory to hold, there has to be more than one judge to have "close ties to MAFIAA" - it would also have to be all judges in the courts in which they have appealed, up to and including the Supreme Court. That sounds like a lot of judges to me.

Perhaps the more likely explanation is that this statement:

They performed all their actions in Sweden where their actions were not illegal

They performed all their actions in Sweden where their actions were not illegal

is simply incorrect?

As is said above they got convicted on accessory to commiting copyright infringement [wikipedia.org] of 7 movies some music and a couple of games. This wasn't really thought of as something that could seriously happen before they got charged with it, and the sentence seems very perveted imho. If accessory to commit crime give you $3.5 million in fines, I would hate to be sentenced for the crime of actually downloading one movie.

I always thought they would get convicted, but I think the verdict was tad bit extreme. They do

Swede here. It's a matter of perspective I guess. The chaplain's largest complaint seems to be isolation, which is pretty bad. On the other side, the cells are pretty comfortable, looking almost like a small hotel room. You get your own bed, tv, desk. Computers are allowed and in some cases video games. Also, prison rape is virtually unheard of.

Really? That's pretty nice. I always wondered why the U.S. would turn such a blind eye to such treatment in our prisons. Such inaction seems to clearly violate 8th amendment rights. But what do I know.:/

Really? That's pretty nice. I always wondered why the U.S. would turn such a blind eye to such treatment in our prisons. Such inaction seems to clearly violate 8th amendment rights. But what do I know.:/

Prison rape is tolerated because it keeps the population in line. A person might be willing to stand on his principles and risk a prison sentence, and the government can't have that. So instead they make the consequences so terrible that people will agree to anything to avoid prison.

I guess they could probably go in and out fine (EU passport will mean that unless they are on a watch list in the country they are going to they probably won't get caught) but if they get stopped by Police when there and checked then they will have to serve their time.

What's even worse is that there aren't many places they can go where they can ever be safe. U.S./Hollywood power pretty much owns every government and legal system in the world. There are only a few countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, etc. that would stand up to that power, and they all have issues of their own.

Yes, and your point is? The technology industry is why the entertainment industry is even as strong as it is today.

Take away their cameras, their lighting, their ability to reproduce their films a thousand times with very little if no degradation, and the maximum audience size for a performance is at most around a thousand (as many as you can pack in a large theater for a single night). If the MPAA is so desperate to put their collective heads in front of that cannon, by all means, let them -> we can mak

Those who have been extradited have made the mistake of going to nations that are either loyal to the US, or puppets of the US. The only Western nation where you might get away with it is Switzerland - it worked for Polanski just about, despite massive US pressure.

It's unlikely the US would get a succesful extradition from a few of the South American nations, Russia, or perhaps even China or India, and frankly if you have money, which it's likely the TPB guys do, then you can still live a pretty damn nice life in these places.

The key is to avoid North America, European nations, Commonwealth nations, and states that defend on US money and weapons for defence like Saudi Arabia and South Korea. As I say - that still leaves much of South America, some of Africa, and some of the biggest nations and ex-soviet states, where again, with a bit of Western money you can still live at least as comfortably as you would in the West.

"According to some analysts, India-U.S. relations have strained over Obama administration's approach in handling the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan.[15][16] India's National Security Adviser, M.K. Narayanan, criticized the Obama administration for linking the Kashmir dispute to the instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan and said that by doing s

No, they are not. Here is some evidence to counter your claims: The US's biggest ally in the region is Pakistan, who, coincidentally, is India's arch rival, and has been since the Partition in 1948(or was it 47, can't really remember); India either develops it's own weapon systems or purchases them from Russia, who happen to be the US's biggest rival in the geo-political and arms trade spheres; India went against the Non-proliferation Treaty and has nuclear weapons. Just because India doesn't openly antagonize the US like Iran, China, NK, or even Pakistan do, or that many US companies have call centers there does not mean that they are the US's "bitch".

Indeed, India is currently running a big media circus of purchasing over a 130 Rafale fighter planes from France, where all the politicians today are running around like maniacs creaming their pants in delight. It's probably just an way to tell Russia or the US to provide similar planes at a 30% discount. As usual.

They are already in the PAK-FA project so there isn't much of a big deal in this. My guess is they cannot way for that project to be finished, so they are buying these fighters as an interim solution. The Chinese have increased their air force just way too much recently...

Does it actually work like that? For me, being convicted of a crime resulting in jail time, would warrant being on a watch list. Isn't passport numbers verified against something when you pass a border in many cases (at least when flying)?

Within the EU you do not need to show a passport when flying, you do need an approved picture ID however. If you are on a watchlist you are likely to end up being caught on arrival since they cross-check passenger manifest.

Being caugt traveling by car, train or boat is unlikely, since customs only check vehicles randomly for restricted goods or if they know a certain vehicle will carry something illegal, like a sentenced man who has not checked in to his 3 star hotel.

If they do reside anywhere in Europe then they are liable to be arrested under a european arrest warrant and sent back to Sweden to serve their time. They must have left Europe and never come back to the entire continent to be safe.

> When crossing an external border, European Union (EU) citizens and other persons enjoying the right of free movement within the EU (such as the family members of an EU citizen) undergo a minimum check. This minimum check is carried out to establish their identity on the basis of their travel documents and consists of a rapid and s

Bummer. People on Slashdot would be screaming to high heaven about the travesty of justice if these were white-collar criminals/CEOs/basically anyone who'd been convicted of a crime that/. readers didn't approve of and was able to stay out of jail by skipping to a different country.

It's not for lack of lobbyist dollars, it's simply that those companies who will have their quarterly returns so greatly impacted are completely unaware of it. If their Chairman / CEOs were aware of the probable damage the entertainment industry was going to do to their bottom line, they would advise their lobbyist to perpetually terminate any legislation coming out of that sector for the next century. But like all things, it will only be after

So I guess Google, Youtube etc etc can fall under being an accessory to copyright violation?

Sure, if they flagrantly violate the law and do nothing when they are told about infringing material being uploaded to Youtube. Except that Youtube takes down infringing material when notified about it and thus, no, they aren't doing the same thing as the Pirate Bay.

Unless MAFIAA can claim copyright on the torrent files (possibly through claiming that a checksum of the original data is a derived work, but I think that's a stretch and would open a wholly different can of worms), then there has never been any infringing material for TPB and other torrent sites to take down. Remember, the only the torrent files can be gotten from TPB, the files that they point to cannot.

In fact, TPB is probably infringing less than Youtube, since when Youtube contains infringing material

So I guess Google, Youtube etc etc can fall under being an accessory to copyright violation?

Sure, if they flagrantly violate the law and do nothing when they are told about infringing material being uploaded to Youtube. Except that Youtube takes down infringing material when notified about it and thus, no, they aren't doing the same thing as the Pirate Bay.

Alright, I can buy that for Youtube since it's actual content being uploaded that they remove.But how about Google search? TPB just serves the torrent file which is basically pointing to the file you want to download (and thus becoming an accessory to copyright violation), same as Googles search index. Neither hold any content...

Google and Youtube respond to DMCA request. They follow the laws and can easily claim plausible deniability.

Pirate Bay never took down any content due to copyright violations and boasts about it. There is no comparison.

DMCA isn't valid in Sweden, where TPB was hosted. IANAswedishL but the reason why TPB "lived" so long in Sweden is because there were no legal hindrances at the time. The point is still, they did not host any content, no content passed TPB servers.

Sweden has its own copyright laws and the Pirate Bay does not even try to follow them.

IANAL, so I don't know what legal loopholes they could use to get around Swedish copyright laws, but it would be much harder to claim plausible deniability when you boast that you hosts torrent files from copyrighted work and that is your main source of Internet traffic.

they used the legal loophole which made the court invent the crime of "assisting copyright infringement". Before this case the general understandning was that if any infringement occured it was because someone made something (which they had no rights to) avaible to others. eg, me hosting an ftp server with "Captain America the first avenger" on my computer and telling you how to log in - that would have been illegal. However, me telling you of a server not operated by me (essentially what a.torrent file do

The idea, I think, is the general principle that Google takes down links to illegal content when they are pointed out. TPB not only did so, it didn't do so explicitly, posting on their website about how they knew some or other torrent really was infringing on the copyright of the person contacting them, but didn't care because it's legal for them to do so. Well, apparently it's not...

1 - The Pirate Bay didn't host any content.2 - If there is no content, it can't be copyright infringement3 - Why should someone in Sweden care about United States of America law? DMCA is not a Swedish law, and has no force in Sweden.4 - The Pirate Bay certainly followed all copyright laws as they understood them (except that they, somehow, induced others to commit copyright offenses). Now, Google CACHES Web pages. Um... that would be a copyright infraction right there. I didn't give Google

The Pirate Bay apparently violated Swedish copyright laws. Unless you are a lawyer and understand the details of Swedish copyright law , it is hard to make a case otherwise.

At least in the US, you won't get in trouble for linking to copyrighted material unless the main purpose of the website is for violating copyright law. There is a distinction in the law that would treat websites like Google, who just use an unbiased bot to index all websites and the Pirate Bay which is a directory of mainly copyrighted

So I guess Google, Youtube etc etc can fall under being an accessory to copyright violation?

Other than for the sake of trolling and FUD-spreading, why would you conclude that? The two cases couldn't be more distinct. TPB flagrantly promotes the ripping off of people's works, and operations like YouTube have entire staffs dedicated to rapidly investigating and dealing with reports of abuse.

The possibility is being discussed in Swedish media [google.com] (via google translate), in fact they specifically mention Google and YouTube. There's nothing specific in the ruling that clearly says that they wouldn't be liable, basically it seems to criminalize all sites that make copyright infringement easier and faster. The wording is very broad and vague, maybe they didn't see anything worth reviewing with regards to TPB but they certainly didn't make things clear on where illegal services end and legal services be

The supreme court in Sweden is supposed to hear important test cases and cases where there is presently ambiguity in law. As encouraging copyright infringement has never before been tested in court, refusing to hear this case just shows how little spine our justice system has.

The Pirate Bay will reach an age of 9 years. Experiencing raids, espionage and death threats, we're still here. We've been through hell and back and it has made us tougher than ever.

The people running the site has changed during the years. No sane human being would put up with this kind of pressure for 8 years in a row. An insane hobby that takes time from our families, our work (sorry boss) and our studies.

What binds us all together is a strong belief that what we do is good. That it is something we one day can tell our grandchildren about with pride. People from all over the world confirm this. We read testimonials from people in Syria longing for freedom, thanking us for what we provide. We receive more than 100 visits daily from North Korea and we sure know that they need it. If there's something that will bring peace to this world it is the understanding and appreciation of your fellow man. What better way to do that than with this vast library of culture?

With this said, we hear news from our old admins that they have received a verdict in Sweden. Our 3 friends and blood brothers have been sentenced to prison. This might sound worse than it is. Since no one of them no longer lives in Sweden, they won't go to jail. They are as free today as they were yesterday.

But what enrages us to our inner core is that the system, the empire, the governments, are still allowed to try to boss you and us around with one law crazier than the other. Do you think they will stop with SOPA/ACTA/PIPA? They will not. Because you won't stop sharing those files. Because we will not stay down. Because no one can turn back time. Together, we are the iron that hardens with each strike.

In this year of the storm, the winners will build windmills and the losers will raise shelters. So flex your muscles, fellow pirates, and give power to us all! Build more sites! More nets! More protocols! Scream louder than ever and take it to the next level!

Although your post is informative on the state of Belgium government idiocy, a little effort on your part is suggested. If you don't know how to search for cached copies of web pages, perhaps you should turn in your/. account.

Most people (non-techs - think of your family and friends) *don't* know about cached copies, and we don't know when courts will get smarter and propose dynamic lists for "equivalent" pages/urls that also have to be blocked to comply with whatever law or court decision.

There will always be ways for the nerdiest 1% to access these pages, but that doesn't change that for most people

Didn't work for me. I get redirected to the blocked page (thepiratebay.se/blog/204).

BTW, if there's a working IP address, is there an easy way to configure my GNU/Linux box to automatically go to that IP address when an application makes a request to "thepiratebay.se"? (I did this before but don't remember the file)

...that the purpose of sites like PB is purely to spread content without paying the producers. There are some tiny percentage of legal files more by accident than intent. They don't affect the business model.

What such sites do is help "chum the market" with content people should not want in the first place.

Want to fight the power? Don't run free Windows either or avoid it as much as possible. Ditto all other shit corporate content.

I really am no fan of copyright, or even government for that matter, so whether people break the law or not is one to me. Unless the crime involves violence, the threat of it, fraud, that sort of thing.... then I really don't care, at all, whether the law even exists, much less gets followed, by anyone. In fact, I don't even see why such laws are seen as legitimate at all....no group of people has any more right over others than an individual has. They may have more might, and more power to force their will

The should go to jail, not for the silly point of facilitating copyright infringement, but to publicly make a point. Somewhat like Gandhi, who submitted to beatings by the British on his own will, showing the public the whole blatant injustice of their behavior... and finally winning the PR war. That's exactly the same TPB guys should be doing, instead of hiding in some jungle out there and looking like criminals on the run. Besides, living conditions in jails in Sweden and in most other northern European c

yes, it does suck, but the alternative could also be like our friends north of the border, where there's something like 4 liberal parties and 1 conservative party so the 1 conservative party gets all the conservative votes, which puts them in power even though they're technically a minority, and they then proceed to enact a bunch of shit legislation like banning mp3s and dvrs.

or at least, that's what the facebook status of my canadian friends tell me.

I've long been a proponent of just abolishing the two political parties we've got here, and having a 7-way draft. we can separate along more logical distinctions.

We can have:The tree-hugging hippie partyThe financial, corporate, and industry partyThe religious extremist (pardon me, I mean evangelical) partyThe backwoods-montana survival-oriented libertarian partyThe inner-city violence and drugs partyThe suburbia partyThe illuminatiEvery one of those hates every other, and nothing would ever get done since any coalition would dissolve within days. From where I sit, that'd be a better situation than the one we're in now.

Reform did an "unfriendly takeover" of the PCs (full disclosure: I was a PC at the time), with the slogan "unite the right"They then renamed the party to just "Conservative" and retained enough members to be able to defeat the NDP and Liberals, who were still splitting the center and

I live in Belgium and we have the word record in government formation. I still prefere it to have a 7-way draft (Actually much more then that. 7 parties where invited to the table, some were not)That way I can vote pro-gun and pro-gay mariage and pro-abortion (or any anti or combination) if so much desire.

There's no reason why it should preclude the member states of the federation to provide representation according to the proportion of people supporting such and such viewpoint, rather than winner-takes-all. Indeed, some states do just that.

Also, U.S. was a weak federation when it was born, but reality is much different today. There has been a very big power shift toward Federal government, which was not reflected in the way said government is elected.

Sorry but this is a misunderstanding of political systems. "eternaldoctorwho" is correct that voting for a third party is throwing your vote away in a two-party first past the post system.

If we are to create better outcomes in the US it would require a better system (such as one of the many proportional representation systems). Our system has been shown to create two-party dominance and shut out any further parties.

As for what we can really do, absolutely nothing. Those in power won't change the system beca

"eternaldoctorwho" is correct that voting for a third party is throwing your vote away in a two-party first past the post system.

It is only throwing your vote away if there is only ever one election, and there will be no other elections in the future.

Otherwise if there will be future elections, it can be a signal to other voters and also the candidates. If the 3rd party gets a significant number of votes, the rest of the voters might start to consider that the 3rd party might actually have a chance in the _next_ election.

The other candidates may consider that too and start changing their behaviour. If the behaviour is closer to what

What he really means is voting for a third party is like voting for the candidate in the top two that you dislike most. Your vote for the third party candidate is being taken away from the candidate you dislike least.

And voting for a third party candidate is like throwing your vote away.

It never ceases to amaze me how you guys haven't figured this out yet. We have a very simple system in place, here: if no one got more than 50% of the total votes, the election enters a second stage, with just the "winner" and the runner-up. It's not perfect, but it's quite functional. You can vote for whoever you want, then if your candidate didn't even come close to winning, you can pick the one you dislike less. That way no one fears "wasting" their votes.

You don't even need a second stage with instant runoff voting. The thing is, neither of the parties in power WANT to allow third parties to gain any power at all, they might have to consider their views instead of the money they get from the wealthy.

Voting for a third part isn't totally useless. It's a little indirect, but the mere fact that some people will vote for a third party means that there's an incentive for the other candidates to adopt some of their policies in order to get some of those votes.

So it's basically a threat. One that only works if you can show you're willing to carry it out.